Los Angeles River Signage Program
A guided tour of a vacant lot
Clockshop and the California State Parks System asked me to develop a project for the Bowtie, a 13.5 acre parcel of land adjacent to the Los Angeles River. The Bowtie is owned by the California State Parks, purchased as a preventative measure (with community groups hoping to prevent the site from turning to industrial uses) with the eventual goal of connecting to the Los Angeles River State Park to make a massive 100-acre greenway. In the meantime, the Bowtie appears to the casual viewer as a more or less abandoned post-industrial vacant lot.
The Los Angeles River Signage Program is a set of three connected signage systems that takes visitors through the vacant lot in maps, diagrams, and stories, using the uncanny beauty and mystery of the location as a hook to talk about real-estate speculation, native plant ideology, and water systems, respectively.
The LARSP is now closed to viewers as it transforms into a daylight stormdrain. It will open again in 2027 with a new work by me! In the meantime you can still take this walk in your mind.
